In addition to his wives and son, he lost his business. Screw magazine ceased to exist in 2003 after 35 years and nearly 2,000 issues. What print had done to peep shows, the internet exacted upon print. “There is a pattern to American life that what is avant-garde becomes commonplace,” Goldstein, out-smutted by the competitors he had inspired, observed in 1981. “The mass market eventually assimilates that which is innovative or revolutionary.”

Goldstein soon lost his home along with his business. Whereas he once split time between his Upper West Side townhouse and Pompano Beach manse, in the new millennium he alternated between sleeping at a local homeless shelter and in his car parked behind a Boston Market. He spent days behind bars. In 2004, police arrested him for stealing books at Barnes & Noble. Publishers not named Al Goldstein maintained no rights Al Goldstein felt obligated to respect.
A man enslaved to his own appetites becomes a tyrant to those around him.

Wives, sons, and secretaries could quit Al Goldstein. The tragedy for Al Goldstein is that he could never quite elude Al Goldstein.